Wicked Stepmother or BPD

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I'm 6 years into a relationship with my current wife, having previously divorced a woman with BPD.  Thought things were going well.  There has always been conflict between my wife and my D15, who lives with me full time.  We usually worked through the conflict, learned, and grew. 

This past year, I have noticed that my wife is always looking for flaws in D15, always looking for mistakes, painting her black, accusing her of lying, wanting to control the family, making typical teen crap into huge storms.  Wife seems to be both painting my D15 black and splitting, there can't be gray, D15 is totally evil in her eyes, trying to displace my wife in her eyes.  When she goes off, she tells D15 she is mentally ill, weak, worthless, should commit suicide, is just like her borderline mother (and brother -- S12 has serious issues and is in his 4th year at an RTC).

D15 is withering under the attacks, depressed, explosive, giving up hope.  It all reached a head two weeks ago when my wife attacked D15 and threw us both out of the house over nothing in particular, at 11:00 on a school night.  I rented an apartment, we're moving out.  Wife offered to move first, she has.  Because of a visit coming from my dad, and then my S12, daughter and I are staying at the house first, then we'll move to the apartment.  Everyone is going to take some space and try to work this out.  In unemotional moments, we agree that we need to decide whether we can all live together, or if it just doesn't work (well, almost everyone, D15 is really hurt and angry, wants distance from my wife, permanently). 

We have worked with family therapists in the past, wife was involved, but has drawn back this past year, totally disengaged, placing the blame on D15, and when I don't back her paranoid view of a 15 year old, verbally attacking me as a weak parent, giving in to a mentally ill child who should be in an institution.  It has been a crap year, D15 is now fully in snotty adolescence, wife had bladder cancer and had a year of immunotherapy treatments that made her feel like crap, and scared of death.  I can't tell if the imbalance this year is just imbalance and uncomfortable, or if my current wife is showing symptoms of BPD; the splitting and painting black). 

So, my question is whether the woman who has been supportive to me and the children through everything for the past 6 years is borderline herself.  Have I placed my children and myself into another unhealthy relationship, or is this all just fleas? 

[ProfDaddy]

I'm 6 years into a relationship with my current wife, having previously divorced a woman with BPD.  Thought things were going well.  There has always been conflict between my wife and my D15, who lives with me full time.  We usually worked through the conflict, learned, and grew. 

This past year, I have noticed that my wife is always looking for flaws in D15, always looking for mistakes, painting her black, accusing her of lying, wanting to control the family, making typical teen crap into huge storms.  Wife seems to be both painting my D15 black and splitting, there can't be gray, D15 is totally evil in her eyes, trying to displace my wife in her eyes.  When she goes off, she tells D15 she is mentally ill, weak, worthless, should commit suicide, is just like her borderline mother (and brother -- S12 has serious issues and is in his 4th year at an RTC).

D15 is withering under the attacks, depressed, explosive, giving up hope.  It all reached a head two weeks ago when my wife attacked D15 and threw us both out of the house over nothing in particular, at 11:00 on a school night.  I rented an apartment, we're moving out.  Wife offered to move first, she has.  Because of a visit coming from my dad, and then my S12, daughter and I are staying at the house first, then we'll move to the apartment.  Everyone is going to take some space and try to work this out.  In unemotional moments, we agree that we need to decide whether we can all live together, or if it just doesn't work (well, almost everyone, D15 is really hurt and angry, wants distance from my wife, permanently). 

We have worked with family therapists in the past, wife was involved, but has drawn back this past year, totally disengaged, placing the blame on D15, and when I don't back her paranoid view of a 15 year old, verbally attacking me as a weak parent, giving in to a mentally ill child who should be in an institution.  It has been a crap year, D15 is now fully in snotty adolescence, wife had bladder cancer and had a year of immunotherapy treatments that made her feel like crap, and scared of death.  I can't tell if the imbalance this year is just imbalance and uncomfortable, or if my current wife is showing symptoms of BPD; the splitting and painting black). 

So, my question is whether the woman who has been supportive to me and the children through everything for the past 6 years is borderline herself.  Have I placed my children and myself into another unhealthy relationship, or is this all just fleas? 

[formflier]

So, my question is whether the woman who has been supportive to me and the children through everything for the past 6 years is borderline herself.  Have I placed my children and myself into another unhealthy relationship, or is this all just fleas? 

     

I applaud you for taking action to protect your kids and create some space and breathing room.  That's what good Dad's do.  Well done.     



I would focus less on the label and more on the behavior.  There could be a number of reasons (diagnosis) that would produce similar behaviors. 

To me... the things to lean forward and look at.

1.  Pulling back from therapy and increasing blame on others... .especially the paranoia type.  (FYI... my wife is likely more PPD than BPD... .paranoia really sucks... .I feel for you)  This is bad.

2.  Being pragmatic and working through living arrangements.  It appears that this is being done fairly reasonably.  This is a very good sign... .very good

I wanted to point this out because it very well be that taking space is a good thing.  Even better would be to have that space guided by a therapist.  More of a therapeutic separation type of thing. 

How long to you expect the space to last? 

FF

[ProfDaddy]

FF,

I expect the space to last for 5 months -- that's how long the lease runs.  Then we can decide what to do next.  Right now, we all work within individual therapists, but there has always been an excuse to avoid family therapy.  If things are uncomfortable enough for her alone, she might be motivated to work with a family therapist to help sort it out.  If not, that's an answer too and we can sell the house and move on.  Right now, I'm going to protect my kids and myself.  There's also a fine line to walk in detaching with love.  I don't want to isolate or punish my wife, we still try to spend time together most days, we just can't live together until we work with a family therapist to try to heal some of what went wrong in the last year, especially for D15.

PD

[formflier]

Do you have the same individual therapist? 

Are they in the same group?

Have releases been signed to the Ts can talk to each other?

The goal here is for her T to understand and be able to communicate what the reluctance is... .and see if there is a pathway towards family T.

Thoughts?

FF